Murphy said that audit costs for small firms have tripled under PCAOB rules, and in some cases have quadrupled since any auditor hired must be PCAOB qualified.
“A lot of small firms have retail clients that are Main Street investors,” she said. “These are the investors that may not have very much to start with, but it's important for them to have guidance, and small firms provide that.”
In addition to Flint and Murphy, there will also be two new public governors on Finra’s board: Camille Busette, director of the Race, Prosperity, and Inclusion Initiative and Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, and Ethiopis Tafara, vice president and general counsel of Legal, Compliance Risk and Sustainability at the International Finance Corporation, which is part of the World Bank Group.
Both Busette and Tafara received the nominating committee’s nominations to be on the ballot.
All four new governors begin three-year terms on Finra’s Board of Governors on Monday.
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra), located in Washington, D.C., is a private corporation that acts as a self-regulatory organization dedicated to investor protection and market integrity. A 24-member Board of Governors oversees the not-for-profit organization.